And good evening.

You've got more than money.

And John DICKERSON, your host, your personal financial adviser, happy to be at your service for the next half an hour.

I'm all yours and I must thank you.

The fact that we are the most relevant financial show on television is all due to you.

You send us the most interesting questions.

And I must confess, there's so much texture to what you offer us that I'm a little embarrassed to say.

There's no way I could come up with even a fraction of that just pontificating on my own.

So I think the entire success of more than money here on PBS is due to you.

So I thank you so very much.

I don't know where we send the awards.

We just have to send us all your your names and addresses.

And Wolf, I'm kidding.

Okay.

Plus, awards.

I'm thinking the award, the reward that we have is helping so many of you.

For lots of you, the questions that you ask are very detailed because you're deep in the middle of the challenge, whatever that challenge may be, or whether it's a retirement challenge.

Saving for a home challenge, educating your children challenge, settling an estate challenge.

These are all challenges and you're deeply in the middle of those.

And for many of you, it's sometimes difficult to separate the emotional piece from the financial piece.

One of the clear advantages of having someone not necessarily, I was going to say, wearing a striped shirt and blowing a whistle.

Obviously, I'm not either of those.

But but operating as as as a guide, as a third party, as a as a less emotional component of your decision making can be really, really helpful.

And in some cases, it's simply a matter of of reframing how you think about a situation.

Recently we had a young couple who came to us young, early fifties, and they were bemoaning the fact that they had saved very little for their retirement and they were what?

And kind of admitting that that well, will work forever because there's no way we can save between now and retirement and because four children are raising children.

College expenses fill in the blanks.

Everybody with a family understands all those challenges and the dollars that have gone out and they were prioritizing.

They they they prioritized their family.

A beautiful thing to do.

Well, hey, woe is me is one way to think about that.

Or reframing that thought, which is, hey, when when do you think you might retire?

One?

Never.

Well, so if I said you should retire at 70 or that would be a dream.

They have 20 years of being able to get from point A to point B, while 20 years currently you're allowed to put away a substantial amount of money in a41k, your company may match that if both the husband and wife in this case they both worked, were able to kind of max that out.

They would be able to put away nearly if they could from a cash flow standpoint, nearly $100,000 a year tax sheltered tax sheltered tax deductible for a large portion of it if they wished, or 100% of it if they wish.

So 100,000 put away really what it cost them, 75 or 80.

And you should see the college checks they've been writing for the last four or five years.

Crazy numbers.

This was actually kind of an easy thing.

So reframing, they're saying, hey, the money we've been spending on college, we're now going to invest for our financial future and they are 20 years to go.

So if you were to put away a hundred grand for 20 years and earn zero, you would retire with $2 million.

And your Social Security, each of their social securities at age 70 is going to be about $4,000 apiece.

So they'll start with Social Security, roughly 100,000 bucks, and with $2 million, they'll add another roughly 80,000 to their cash flow.

Can they retire?

I sure hope so.

It's a reframing.

It's a way to rethink about what has happened and what will happen.

Hopefully, we can help you reframe a few of your ideas this evening.

For that, we turn to our financial correspondent.

Megan.

Where do we start this evening?

Our first question tonight says, I am 56 years old and semi-retired.

I was a single mother for many years, but I have managed to be quite successful during the 30 plus years working in corporate America.

My total net worth is approximately 3.4 million, including my home investments and liquid cash.

I will be writing my final college tuition check at the end of this year.

I do not have any credit card debt.

I own my car, but I have a mortgage on my home, which is 325,000 at 3.5%.

The home is worth 800,000.

I recently married and have a prenup trust well and other related documents.

My spouse, who is 64, is also semi-retired and already receives a Social Security Widowers pension of approximately 1400 dollars a month.

He has no savings to speak of, though.

We live on approximately $9,000 a month from income generated by my small business and my spouse is part time job.

My question is whether we are spending too much and should we begin to consider reducing our expenses so that the money I worked so hard for lasts for the rest of our lives?

Thank you.

Well, first of all, well done, you fantastic.

The concerns that you express put aside for a moment.

Kudos.

Fantastic.

What amazing results.

Single mom.

56 years old, with over $3 million in assets.

Amazing.

Little or no debt.

Let's not even talk about the mortgage.

You've got tremendous equity in your home and your mortgage has a teeny, tiny interest rate.

You have done so many amazing things.

Fantastic, fantastic role model to women everywhere.

Role model to men everywhere.

You have done an amazing job, well done.

Now, having said that, this the piece of this puzzle that you will, in my words, need to reframe is not financial.

It's it's it's how you think about money.

I get your concern 100%.

The question is, are we spending too much?

Are we going to run out of money?

At 56, you probably only have.

I don't mean to be maudlin, but you probably only have 40 or 50 more good years left.

You will join the happy, healthy 100 club and we are just going to keep on mar it.

So yes, you want to make sure you're not going to run out of money at 83 and live another 17 years.

Bro.

That makes no sense.

So we've we've got to be very thoughtful about what we do with the moneys that you have.

But we also have to be very aware, very appreciative of what you've accomplished and what it really means for you.

$9,000 a month initially currently being funded by a little bit of Social Security and some part time income from both of you is doable.

Of course, right up to the point where you go from cemetery tired to retired.

And now the question is, is that going to work?

Well, if we look at, say, a ten year period and decide that you're going to retire at 66, your husband at that point will be in his mid seventies, his Social Security will be whatever it will be currently 14, 1400 a month.

Let's say it's 2000.

Just to be a nice round number, I jot that down.

Your Social Security in ten years will be normal retirement age, kind of nearly.

And so your Social Security is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood and picking a number out of thin air.

3000 a month.

It's more.

But that makes it a nice five.

And if you need not nine, you're going to need, say, ten.

You need $5,000 a month in order to supplement your income, in order to pay your bills and be happy and healthy.

We currently have $3.4 million, including the equity in your home.

I'm going to reduce that down to 2 million.

2 million?

2 million.

That is investable that you will use to support yourself in your retirement.

The other 1.8 million will be icing on the cake.

So over the next ten years, if you are able to no guarantees, but if you're able to average 7% per year on your investments without adding another dollar, your 2 million will become 4 million.

That's a cool number.

4% return on 4 million is about $160,000.

4% is kind of a rough rule of thumb in terms of how much you should spend maximum in order not to eat into your your your principal.

So if you're making seven, as we've demonstrated, again, no guarantees, but we're using that as as an example.

And you're spending four.

Not only does your $4 million not go down, but it will grow by 3% a year.

So at the end of ten years of having spent 4% spending $160,000 plus a year, your 4 million will not be 4 million.

It will be 5.2.

That's pretty cool.

So bottom line for you is you're in great shape.

You're going to continue to be in great shape.

You can easily afford to spend $9,000 a month.

You will be able to spend far more than that in retirement.

How cool is that?

And talk about icing on the cake.

This beautiful mortgage that you currently have will eventually.

I don't know if it's ten years, 12 years, 15 years, but eventually it will be paid off.

And then the payments that you're making on a 300,000 or mortgage go away and you can spend that money, too.

Again, you have done so many wonderful things.

Now we just need you to embrace, to reframe your thinking around all the wonderful things that that hard work will produce for you in the near term and happy, healthy growth for sure.

Well done.

That was great.

What a great start.

Where do we go next?

Our next question says, I read that people who are retired should have guaranteed income like Social Security and pensions to cover their living expenses.

I don't have a pension and my Social Security covers only half of my living expenses.

What should I do, Jean?

Okay.

There's there's this is a very common scenario and let's put some numbers to it.

I'd say that you've saved $500,000.

That's in your retirement plan.

Your your Social Security gives you 2500 a month, and you need $5,000 to make sure your bills are paid.

You're happy.

You're healthy.

You have a couple options.

Number one, you can think about this slightly differently.

You can look at your investments and determine that, hey, I'm very confident we're doing this intelligently.

I have a good financial advisor, a good accountant.

We're paying attention.

I think we're going to be fine.

And you can just take a deep breath and let it go.

For many people, that doesn't do it.

For many people, that doesn't relieve them of the anxiety they need to know.

They need assurances that they are guaranteed not to run out of money.

In this case, that translates into the word annuity.

By the way, a pension is nothing more than a fancy annuity.

Social Security is nothing more than a government government annuity.

Forgive the eye roll.

What are you going to do?

Bottom line is you can secure an annuity that would give you that difference at 20 $500 a month.

Difference about $30,000 a year.

It would probably take off maybe 400,000, maybe 380 of your savings.

But then you would be guaranteed you can never run out of money.

Those checks will be direct deposited every month, as mama used to say, Come hell or high water, and you would still have a large chunk of money left over as your cushion as you're.

What happens if kind of money?

Hopefully you also own a home that will give you some security, financial security as well.

But that's what they mean in terms of creating peace of mind for you.

Very doable.

You should work with an experienced financial adviser who understands all the various types of annuities.

There are many types.

Compare all of them.

Pick the one that fits you best.

You'll do fine.

Speaking of doing fine.

Hopefully we'll do fine.

Answering this next question, Megs.

Well, this next question, I think you're going to have to put your Dr. Phil hat on for.

It says, My fiancee and I agreed to buy a house that was more than what we expected to pay, but we both liked it.

We agreed that I would pay the mortgage payments and she would pay the taxes every year when we bought the house, we decided to pay the taxes separately from the mortgage.

As time passed, I asked her if she was putting money away each month so that when the tax bill arrived, she would have enough money to pay the taxes.

Her answer was, Don't worry, I will have money to pay the taxes.

But when it came time to pay the taxes, she had not put money away.

She actually told me that as I am the man, I should pay all the bills.

It caused big problems in our relationship, even to the point where she moved out for a year.

We got back together with the understanding that I would pay the taxes and the mortgage.

We have been in the house for four years, and to this day she has not paid anything, not even a utility bill.

Wondering is she entitled to 50% of the proceeds if we were to sell the home?

She has her own cleaning business and is more than capable of helping to pay the bills.

I have proof that she has not given me money, any money whatsoever to go towards these bills though.

What are your thoughts, Jean?

Sadly, I have bad news and then I have worse news.

Bad news.

If you sell the house, you bought the house together, you sell the house.

She is absolutely entitled to half the house, half the proceeds.

It doesn't matter that you've paid all the bills.

It doesn't matter.

You have all the receipts.

It doesn't matter.

She hasn't put a dime in.

If we see this under a very different, much more positive scenario, it was not uncommon in my parents generation that husband and wife would buy a home together.

The wife would stay home.

Hence housewife.

The husband would pay all the bills.

And then, sadly, if a divorce would occur, would she get half in almost every case?

Of course.

Of course.

Because they were a team.

In this case, you signed up for that prior to the marriage piece.

Almost really doesn't matter.

You have failed to enforce her agreement.

And and as a result, yeah, she's going to get half of the proceeds.

That's the bad news.

The worsening is, as you are with a mooch.

You're with a woman who's just literally beating you bloody and taking advantage of your good nature.

You are clearly not a confrontational person.

Of course, I have been accused of not being a confrontational person many times.

Meek and mild is probably the descriptor I hear.

All right.

That's not me.

No.

To the curb.

She would have gone years ago.

But you didn't make that choice.

You had ou window of opportunity.

She moved out.

Grant that.

And she's back.

And she questions your validity as a man.

You should be paying for all these things.

This is not a human being.

That any selfish acting man wants to spend the rest of his life with.

So the word fiancee doesn't make any sense, in my opinion.

He said cautiously.

Yeah, I just don't.

I don't see a future.

She's going to get a half of either the house because you're going to sell it.

And kicker to the curb or half of everything you're ever going to make for the rest of your life or way more.

This is not going to end well.

The red flags are all over this.

So consider her giving half of the proceeds as the least expensive way of settling, of resolving an error in judgment.

We all make mistakes.

Goodness gracious.

Trust me, we all make mistakes.

But you've got to fess up, resolve them, face them, and put them in your rearview mirror and start fresh.

And this will be the least painful way to do it.

Easy.

No.

Less painful.

Yes.

Ouch.

Max, Why?

Why did.

Why did we do that?

That was painful.

Painful?

That one was pretty personal.

This one's a little more vague, General.

Short and sweet.

It says if I invest in the S&P 500, do I really need to add foreign stocks to my investments?

Wow.

Fascinating.

This is a very interesting question.

And the answer may be unexpected to you.

For most of you, investing is a kind of a foreign language.

There's a lot that goes on that I'm not really clear about any of that stuff.

But for those of you who are investing savvy, the S&P 500, the Standard and Poor's 500 is an index and it measures the performance of 500 of the large companies in America today.

Very, very typical to be held in many different types of investment portfolios.

It's been around a very long time.

It's a very inexpensive way to get very broad diversification.

Your own little bit of 500 companies, it's pretty cool.

Tracks the markets pretty directly and typically very inexpensive.

Very inexpensive.

So the question becomes, if you're investing in the 500 largest companies in America, are you also would you also require a for diversification purposes, an investment in foreign stocks?

Companies like Volvo based in in Sweden, I think IKEA's in Sweden as well, etc.. And the answer might surprise you because the answer is no.

You don't really need separate foreign company exposure because recent evaluations suggest 88% of the S&P 500 companies have substantial, in some cases, the majority of their activities outside the United States.

So picking one of the easier ones to see the light.

Coke.

Coke has been around for a long time.

Pretty much saturated the American market decades ago.

But overseas, expanding, growing, growing.

I don't know that the majority of their revenues come from overseas, but it would not surprise me.

So if you've got 88% of these companies investing around the world, do you really, for diversification purposes, need the S&P 500 index and a foreign stock index?

The answer's no.

The answer is no.

Now, to be to take that thought process one step further, it would be really weird if the only investment that you had in your investment portfolio was one item, the S&P 500 index.

And the only reason that it would kind of make sense is if you had a relatively modest amount of money to invest.

If you had five or $10,000, relatively modest, and you wanted to be kind of hands off, want it to be autopilot, kind of an investment.

I get it.

S&P 500 index would probably be an excellent choice because you got all that great stuff, 500 companies, international exposure, etc..

However, once you get above any kind of reasonable double digit, not not double digit, not seven figure number, certainly six figure number, you're going to want more diversification, not just stocks here and there, but maybe bonds, maybe real estate, maybe precious metals.

It will need to be custom designed to meet your personal needs.

But the idea that you would have one investment in the S&P 500, pretty unusual.

But your question still very, very valid.

And hopefully you were maybe even a little modestly surprised at the answer.

Excellent indeed.

Makes one more.

You do.

This one's also short and sweet.

It says, We are thinking about investing in an annuity, looking for some information and guidance.

Can you help us?

Sure.

But you want to sit down.

The idea that you're thinking about investing in an annuity is is wonderfully naive and respectfully.

I would say it's also significantly uninformed because annuities come in many flavors, many flavors.

So to say I'm interested in an annuity is like saying I'm interested in a vehicle.

A vehicle?

You mean a car?

No, not a car.

You mean a truck?

No, not a truck.

That the variety of vehicles is tremendous.

So how would you pick what type of vehicle you wish to purchase?

Well, let's think first.

What do you need that vehicle to do for you?

What characteristics of a car?

A truck, An SUV?

Goodness.

A motorcycle.

An ATV, please.

Now, A TV, whatever.

What?

What do you need it to do for you?

What is your what is your objective?

And then you can start to narrow down your search for a vehicle.

Annuities are exactly the same way.

There are annuities that come in very plain vanilla fashion.

You put money in.

They give you a guaranteed interest rate for a set period of time.

I'm going to give you a five and a half percent for three years.

Done.

Almost no moving parts.

Then on the flip side of that, there are variable annuities that have almost infinitely large numbers of moving parts.

Add to those are bookends.

Add to the the fleshing out the spectrum investment said have several moving parts but lots of guarantees.

Add to them investments that create an income stream that you can never outlive.

Add to those investments that have some blend of all of these factors and you can see why.

Gosh, my head hurts.

If you're looking at the universe of annuities, of course your head will hurt because there's little or no way to absorb all of the pluses and minuses.

Without a very simple tool, and that's what do you want it to do for you.

And the tool then that having that understood ending of this is what I need the annuity to do.

That is the tool against which you measure all other annuities.

I want the annuity to create an income.

Here's a variable annuity that that doesn't fit.

Here's a RILA registered index linked that doesn't fit.

Here's a an annuity that saves up money for the next 15 years.

It doesn't fit.

Excellent.

By clearing out all the items that don't fit, you focus on the ones that do.

And then compare five or six different individual plans of the types that do to see which one fits you best.

Yeah, it's a bit of work.

No question about it.

Working with a financial advisor has a lot of experience with annuities is a huge advantage because he or she will be able to ask you all the right questions.

Hone in on the parts of the spectrum, the annuity spectrum that fits you the best, and then start guiding us to individual plans.

They are out there.

They're there.

Not unicorns, but they're pretty rare.

But if you find one, you'll do just just fine.

Gosh, we've covered a lot of ground.

Hopefully you picked up a lot of ideas.

Hopefully, maybe it inspired you to say, you know what?

I want to ask my own question that is sent directly to me.

Jean Glennie at Ask MTM dot com.

I have an entire team of advisors that answer all those questions back to you.

Answer every single question.

The hard ones, easy ones and everything in between.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll see your question asked and answered on a future edition of More than Money.

That would be great fun.

That would certainly be worthy.

Call your friends and family.

Watch.

That's my question.

Even if it's not your question, hopefully you'll return next week.

When we come back with more Q&A right here on the next edition of More Than Money.

Good night.